


how it all comes undone.

by towards



Series: discord drabbles [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Child Abuse, Drug Use, M/M, Overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 06:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12742899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards/pseuds/towards
Summary: Until he takes the stand and sits and shakes under the reproachful eyes of the entire town. Tweek’s hands knot together and he testifies into his lap. Trembling in a way he hasn’t for months, healed cracks breaking open and revealing the scarred tissue of his psyche underneath. He presents his side of the story in a wavering voice – he was worked in the back room without pay. He was dosed with meth with the rest of the town, forced to taste-test it, gaslit and twisted into fearing the world around him so they could maintain their hold on him. He had to transport drugs instead of play with friends.He’s emboldened by the nods of friends who knew the truth. Assurances that they know, they believe him, it will be okay.And then his parents lawyer steps forward.





	how it all comes undone.

**Author's Note:**

> bad end from a discord rp.
> 
> essentially, tweek's friends intervene and get him pulled from the family home and into the hospital for a safe detox. eric and tweek bond over some shared mental health problems and tweek ends up staying with him when he gets out.
> 
> things in the actual verse go a lot better than they are here.

Tweek gets better.

Nights are spent watching reruns of old shows and enjoying the latest games, laughing, finding common ground where he’d never thought he would. Eric Cartman isn’t so bad when he’s alone, when he’s not fronting for the world to see.

He’s getting better day by day. Putting on weight, laughing easier, shaking less. The problems are still there, but the cracks in his mind and body are slowly filled in with love and a zest for life he never had before. He integrates back into school without having to take the year off and works on a music scholarship, letting his fingers tell the story that his heart can’t.

He’s fine until the trial. When his parents present their argument - they never gave their son any kind of drug, and they certainly never put it in their coffee. Their boy was the only one ever in the back room, their boy was the one clearly on drugs. They spin a tale of lives lived in fear of their child, concocting outbursts that never happened and symptoms he doesn’t have.

But they can argue it. They parade out ancient diagnoses and time spent in Hells Pass’ mental ward, when bloodtests were foregone in favor of sedatives and assurances that it was all in his head. He picks at his lip until someone (Eric, he thinks, he isn’t paying attention) catches his hand and forces it back down.

He holds it together until he’s called to the stand.

Until he takes the stand and sits and shakes under the reproachful eyes of the entire town. Tweek’s hands knot together and he testifies into his lap. Trembling in a way he hasn’t for months, healed cracks breaking open and revealing the scarred tissue of his psyche underneath. He presents his side of the story in a wavering voice – he was worked in the back room without pay. He was dosed with meth with the rest of the town, forced to taste-test it, gaslit and twisted into fearing the world around him so they could maintain their hold on him. He had to transport drugs instead of play with friends.

He’s emboldened by the nods of friends who knew the truth. Assurances that they know, they believe him, it will be okay.

And then his parents lawyer steps forward.

The defense takes a crowbar to him. Rips him apart, flays him, reduces him to tears and shouts – the goal, of course. He sees Richard’s smug face and Helen’s teary eyes. He knows what they’re doing, he knows, and he hates that it works, hates that they make him doubt himself.

Their narrative fits easily. They weren’t slipping drugs into their coffee, it was their son. Look at him! Just look at him! He’s so clearly strung out and desperate, and he was the only one in the store. He’s dangerous, he’s crazy, they lived every day in fear of him. He pulled a knife on Richard – he was sleeping in the shop, they couldn’t even go near it!

Was it true?

Was he lying?

They were his parents, and he can see the way people look at him now. Less sympathetic, more suspicious. He had always been twitchy, been on edge - what was it for?

Eric’s voice is weirdly low and soft, asking if he’s okay but he’s not, he’s not, he’s not. He doesn’t even remember getting off the stand. Tweek shakes worse than he ever has and Liane’s soft voice seems so distant. Someone does the buckle and they take a turn, and he finds himself folding against Cartman. Not sure when he slumped over, only sure he doesn’t have the energy to sit up. He stays there until they reach the driveway, Eric’s arm loosely around him like he isn’t sure whether to hold him or push him off. A gnome skitters across the hood of the car and disappears under the garage, Tweek blinks hard and sits up, a shout on his lips - but it’s gone.

No trace.

Like it was never there at all.

Just like that, months of progress comes undone. He lashes out at everyone who comes close, withdrawing into his own little world. Eric ends up grabbing him by both shoulders and weather a vicious barrage of kicks and screaming when he makes the mistake of bumping against him in the kitchen. Tweek doesn’t recognize him until his back hits the countertop and he’s forced to look at him and see Eric Cartman and not his father. Then he just grabs on, holds him tight, heaves and sobs and screams.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

They don’t talk about it afterwards. A mistake. Emotions are not something Cartman handles and Tweek has learned to repress and muffle until its all ust static.

The defense pleads innocent and the jury deliberates for sixteen solid hours, but he already knows the outcome from the way the media slants the coverage. Tweek doesn't go to the court room. Instead he goes for a walk, and when he returns, a seven solid months of sobriety goes out the window in the darkest corner of his bedroom. He makes it as potent as he can, desperate not to think, to feel, rushes to the only thing that makes any fucking sense in this world and has never let him down.

Cartman breaks down the door when he doesn’t answer for knocks. Panic in his voice, he realizes he’s never heard Eric actually feel anything other than rage or self centered glee. He hears him shout for his mother – not the high pitched, wailing ‘MEM’ but an actual genuine shout of terror. He’s lifted from a puddle of vomit, opens his eyes to blurring colors and blackened edges and a face caught between terror and fury.


End file.
